


The Age of Not-Believing

by Mithrigil



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Growing Up, Magic Realism, When worlds collide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 12:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/598003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrigil/pseuds/Mithrigil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten years after the bathhouse, Chihiro spends Golden Week vacationing with her real-world friends, but can't help keeping an eye out for some from the other side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Age of Not-Believing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [antediluvian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/antediluvian/gifts).



The ruins of Takeda Castle don’t lead anywhere. The space is thoroughly open, stone frames overgrown with grass so green that it makes the sky look almost white in comparison. It spills out in stages down the hill like a giant’s staircase over the adjacent treetops, and the fields beneath it that once grew thousands of pounds of rice stretch out flat in the distance, more like a sea than land, with a network of little brooks as silver as spiderwebs winding into the blue mountains to the northwest.

Chihiro doesn’t dare take a picture. The enormity, the vastness and brightness knock her breath out of her lungs and her camera slips out of her hands, dangles around her neck so sharply that it jerks her forward onto the balls of her feet.

“C’mon!” Junko says, grabbing her wrist and dragging her forward the rest of the way. “Don’t just stand there, lazyass.”

“Right, sorry!”

The rest of her friends--Riyoko, Jouji, and Ichiro--are snapping dozens with their phones, and Saya with her enormous camera. They pull Chihiro into a picture, throw peace signs and make ridiculous faces. It looks like they’re not the only kids taking their Golden Week vacation inland instead of out of the country: there are at least two other groups of seniors from different schools, and a few families with the same idea. But Chihiro would have definitely come here anyway, with or without her parents, with or without Golden Week. Junko’s just excited to be traveling without hers, and Riyoko and Saya’s parents only gave in on the condition that they stay on Honshu. So they all agreed on spending the week sightseeing in Kyoto and Osaka and, now, Asago, because Jouji and Ichiro are total jidai geki fanboys.

After the first round of pictures, Ichiro picks up a branch and does a few kendo kata with it, and Jouji busts out his best kabuki hero imitation, and soon enough they’re reenacting one duel or another. Chihiro’s not as up on the history of this castle as she wants to be, but it’s pretty funny, and other tourists laugh, join in, switch their cameras to record instead of snap and get the boys to start over from the beginning.

“Nerds,” Riyoko says, and perches on one of the ruined walls. The thinnest branches of a tree scratch the stone next to her, and she clears them aside, but they swat back. Chihiro can’t help laughing--the tree says _watch it, pervert_ , and it’s not like Riyoko will ever hear that from a tree on the metro.

“I don’t know, I think it’s cute,” Junko says.

“You think anything Jouji does is cute.”

“No I don’t!’

“Sure you do, I’ve read your Mixi comments.”

The boys have drawn enough of a crowd by this point that it’s impossible to see them sitting down. Ichiro is shouting about how he will defend this castle from some monkey until his last breath. Wind rustles the treetops and the overgrown grass, sends their laughter along. Apparently some of the stones have opinions on amateur theater. Chihiro grins, wishes she could tell them she agrees without sounding like a freak for talking to the air.

She learned not to talk to the spirits a long time ago, at least not aloud. That doesn’t mean she can’t listen, and there’s something not right about the stir they’re kicking up.

“Guys,” she says, when the _do not_ s and _do so_ s start getting gigglier, “watch my back, okay?”

“Chihiro, what are you--”

Riyoko doesn’t get to finish asking: Chihiro gets to her feet, stands on the rail so she can see over the tourists’ heads, and holds on to the nearest bough. Ichiro is in the middle of a valiant death scene, and Jouji has on the face of a sniveling villain and a fallen branch for a sword, and will take this castle like he has taken the rest of Japan. The tourists laugh.

So do the stones.

The earthquake is brief, more like the shuddering of a concert hall floor or the sudden rumble of an underground train. Some people don’t even notice it until after it’s passed, and maybe some won’t pick up on it until they upload their videos and notice the jittercam. But the ones who do notice, who pause to look around or reach for their friends’ or children’s hands, still aren’t looking at the ruin itself.

Jouji and Ichiro’s show goes on. Chihiro holds on to the bough of the tree and squints through the crowd. The spirits applaud, but this time, only she can hear it.

It might not have been applause, before.

***

The boys’ hotel room is down the hall--that was one of everyone’s parents’ conditions for the trip in the first place--but aside from when they go to sleep, the girls’ room is the designated hangout. Chihiro honestly doesn’t mind, even if it’s a little hypocritical of their parents, since Saya and Riyoko are dating and sleeping together (but then again, their parents don’t know that, and they haven’t done anything in the room even when Chihiro and Junko aren’t in it, so it’s a moot point). And it’s a small price to pay for getting to go on an unchaperoned trip in the first place, at least as far as Chihiro’s concerned.

But it ultimately means that all six of them are packed into the hotel room, awake unless they’re not. And it doesn’t make it easy to think.

“Check it out check it out, we’re already on Nico,” Ichiro says, waving the others over and typing as fast as a blur. “Ha, I look like an idiot.”

“No shit,” Junko says. He sticks his tongue out at her, she does it back. “Wait, forty hits already?”

“Guess it’s a popular channel.”

Chihiro looks over their shoulders as Ichiro reopens the page in a new window to refresh the hitcount. Not forty--fifty-five.

Jouji whistles through his teeth. “Guess you don’t have to upload yours, Saya.”

Ichiro refreshes it again. Sixty-three. Eight hits in five seconds. Something’s weird.

Chihiro uncurls off the bed, tries to get into the group. “Scroll down for comments.”

“Huh? Okay, sure.”

He refreshes it once more--eighty-nine hits, now--and five comments. 

_Weeeeeird!!!_

_that face at 1:46 damn_

_totally photoshop_

_THat splicing isni’t even any good. Shaky cam to mask bad makeup? Go back to film school._

_Creepy as hell, holy crap!_

Chihiro reaches right past the others and swats Ichiro’s hand off the trackpad. The video in the first window is still playing, with about 1:40 on the clock. The little earthquake starts, and Ichiro makes his proclamation as the warlord that he will take this castle in the nation’s name--

“Whoa,” Junko says. All of them are thinking it.

The comments aren’t talking about the stupid faces Ichiro was making. They’re talking about Jouji’s, which isn’t his own for as long as the stones are laughing.

In fact, one might say he has no face at all.

***

“How much to take me to Takeda Castle?” Chihiro asks the first cabbie she finds downstairs.

Before he can tell her the price, Junko catches up and grabs her arm from behind. “You’re not going out there alone.”

“No one said they wanted to come with me.”

“Yeah, so you’re not going at all! We all worked hard to make our parents give us permission to come here and if you get us in trouble because some stupid guy made a creepy manip, and we never get to go off alone again, I will never forgive you.”

“I won’t get in trouble,” Chihiro says--it might be a lie, but she holds the door of the cab open anyway and apologizes to the driver, then turns back to Junko, who definitely doesn’t understand. “You have my phone, okay? Call if I’m not back by two AM.”

“This is really stupid, Chihiro.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But I really don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Well, we will if anyone finds out about this!” Junko shoulders her way into the cab door, tries to pry Chihiro’s hand off it. Chihiro doesn’t let her. “Don’t be so selfish.”

Chihiro can’t tell her that that’s the exact opposite of what she’s doing.

“Junko,” she says, “I’m sorry. But I’m going. Either you can come with me, or just trust me and call if you’re worried. Or I can text you to tell you I’m safe every half hour or something.” And as long as she doesn’t get dragged in, she will, but that honestly might be more trouble than it’s worth.

Junko thinks about it the way she used to think about cutting class, before senioritis kicked in. “This isn’t another one of your ghost hunts, is it? We’re too old for that crap.”

“We’re not,” Chihiro says.

Other cabs pull out of the driveway. This one waits.

“Forget it,” Junko says, shoving past Chihiro into the cab, “I’m coming with you.”

And Chihiro can’t exactly say no after she offered, even if the offer was really more of a threat, but it’s too late now.

***

The ride is quiet and tense, and the lights of Asago taper off into the distance, leaving the backseat dark except for their phones. Junko texts the others back at the hotel more than she talks to Chihiro: Chihiro refreshes the video on Nico, watching the hitcount climb into the thousands. The cab driver plays K-Pop, soft enough that Chihiro knows he’s used to customers who bring their own music and conversation and means no disrespect.

Junko receives, then sends another text. Her thumbs tap on the touchscreen, reminiscent of tiny sooty feet on a boiler room floor. Chihiro remembers hunting for sprites together, haunting roadside shrines and abandoned houses until they might as well be spirits themselves. It wasn’t that long ago. It was only half a life ago.

“There,” Junko says, dropping her phone into her lap, “they all think we’re crazy.”

“I’m sorry,” Chihiro says, even if she’s not sure it’s true.

“Whatever. Did you bring your camera? As long as we’re being idiots we should get pictures.”

Chihiro shakes her head. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t think he should be on camera.”

“He?”

“No-Face.”

“Who has no face?”

“No, that’s his name. No-Face.”

“Shit, you really have gone nuts, haven’t you? You’re supposed to be happy to be graduating, not regressing back to elementary school.”

“If I’m really that crazy you should have stayed back at the hotel.”

“No way. If you go off and do something stupid, I’ll never have any freedom ever again.”

Chihiro won’t lie and say she’s not doing anything stupid. “Doing nothing would be stupider.”

Junko sighs and leans her head against the window. Her crossed bobby pins click on the glass. She used to wear barrettes instead, always on the same side. Not that Chihiro hasn’t changed her hair too--for a couple months in middle school she wore it like Haku, and then after that started looking creepy and getting in the way of sports she grew it to a ponytail length again--but of all the friends Chihiro’s going to leave behind when she goes to university, Junko might be moving away the fastest.

Then again, there’s tonight.

“Doing nothing about what?” Junko asks. “This isn’t the time to chase ghosts and play games, Chihiro. Even if we’re going to be irresponsible, we have to be responsible about it. It would be one thing if you’d met some guy and needed us to cover for you when you went to his room instead of ours in the hotel. Or if we all decided to do something together and just decide not to tell anyone. But I still say you should just tell the cab to turn around so you don’t risk all of us getting in trouble just so you can run off for some childish game.”

“Did you really just come with me so you could convince me to come back, or is that just what everyone else is telling you to do?”

Junko doesn’t have an answer to that, just a livid glare.

The K-Pop plays on in the front seat.

***

It costs extra to make the driver wait, but Chihiro does it anyway. She can’t, and doesn’t, promise it won’t take long. But she does tell Junko “You can wait here if you want to.”

Junko sighs dramatically and slams the cab door. Well, at least she isn’t afraid. And Chihiro nods, says “Okay, here we go,” and starts heading up into the ruins.

She didn’t bring a flashlight, but her phone has an app for that, so she shines it to make the way up the stairs easier. This far from the city, the stars shine bright and steady, but there’s no moon, or if there is one it’s clouded or behind the trees, and Chihiro guesses that this can be a beacon as much as a flashlight. After all, No-Face has to find her too, if he’s still here.

“This is stupid,” Junko says, either before or as she trips up one of the uneven stone steps. At least she’s not wearing fancy shoes.

“Maybe,” Chihiro says. It’s still a long way to the top, but Junko’s sourness is already driving the other spirits in the area away. Even the tanuki and the field mice are turning their backs, and don’t even watch to wonder where the girls are going.

Talking with the spirits doesn’t mean the same thing it did when Chihiro was a little girl. It’s more of a general sense, which she might have had to begin with--that eye for statues and houses and the peculiar turns of the wind. But now the feelings are more precise, like knowing which wheel skipped on the train tracks, which sound from the walls is the air conditioner and which is the pipes and which is the ghost. 

But they’re all so close to the surface here, close enough to touch her, if not for her to touch them. Just to listen, and maybe talk back if they talk first.

They don’t like Junko. It’s not that Chihiro can’t blame them, that would be rude, but she does understand.

“Hey Junko?”

“Yeah?”

“Remember when I first moved?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You know I don’t think I ever thanked you for showing me around,” Chihiro says.

“Well, we were friends after that. You didn’t have to.”

“I guess,” Chihiro says. “Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t thank you.”

“Chihiro, you’re really starting to freak me out.”

“It didn’t used to.”

“You didn’t used to run around abandoned castles in the middle of the night.” It’s surprising, but Junko catches up with her, grabs her by the wrist. “Seriously. Don’t start talking about how we used to be friends while you’re climbing a big staircase during Golden Week.”

Chihiro blushes. “Oh. I promise I’m not here to kill myself. You’re really worried about that?”

“What else am I supposed to think?” It’s hard to tell if Junko’s grip tightens or just trembles. “You’re being crazy.”

There’s still two flights to climb, and even then there might be more that Chihiro can’t see from here. The light from her phone is almost sucked into a low teeming fog, creeping down from the stars. Chihiro remembers a sea she’s never been back to, the wake of a train on the surface of the water, saying it would be fine to walk back along the tracks and not knowing the distance or the magnitude of her offer, and how much it meant to save her friends.

“I guess so,” she says, and starts back up the staircase.

Junko holds on. Chihiro’s thankful for that--it makes her feel less like she’s dragging her friend along. She wonders if this is how her father felt, years ago, looking for a little adventure through a tunnel. But they make it to the highest part of the castle’s ruined foundation, and even if the fog doesn’t clear and there aren’t any extra staircases, Chihiro knows she made the right choice.

No-Face is waiting, barely visible as a patch of pure blackness against the sky. His mask is as plain as ever, and the shadows make him smile--not cruel, but not quite welcoming either.

“Junko, I know how weird this sounds, but don’t take anything he offers you, okay?”

“What the _fuck_ ,” Junko says.

“Just trust me,” Chihiro says, and then bows to the spirit. “Hello.”

No-Face nods and makes a little sound in the back of his throat, if he has one. In the scant light of Chihiro’s phone, she can see his little hands wringing. She thinks they must have always been this small.

“It’s been a long time.”

He nods again, holds out a shining bright phone just like hers.

“No thank you. It was good to see you,” Chihiro goes on, steps just a little forward, with Junko still holding on. “Did you want to meet my friends?”

“Chihiro this is _fucking creepy, can we go back to the hotel now please--_ ”

For a third time, No-Face nods. Phones with gleaming touchscreens spill out of his palms, but crumble into steam and dust once they touch the grass of the ruins.

Chihiro folds her hand over Junko’s. “This is Junko. And I guess you met Ichiro and Jouji earlier. Saya might have got your picture too. Though I guess you know about the pictures. Have you been here long? How is Grandma Zeniba?”

It’s hard to tell, and it might just be the light from the shifting pile of phones, but the shadows around No-Face’s mask brighten and the smile tautens, curls a little higher.

“I hope she and Boh and everyone are all right. And how is your spinning?”

The phones disappear, but the glow doesn’t, quite: he’s got something else in his hand now, a long string of woven ribbon that glimmers with its own light. He offers it forward with a gentle _ah_.

“No, thank you,” Chihiro says, and turns a little so he can see her ponytail. “I still have mine, see? I’ve taken good care of it.”

For a moment, No-Face seems satisfied--but then he offers the ribbon to Junko, who looks altogether ready to jump out of her skin.

“I can’t refuse it for you,” Chihiro whispers, “but I don’t think it’s okay.”

Junko keels forward, almost a proper bow, but her trembling has passed through her feet straight to the earth and there’s that sense again, something not right, spirits laughing, stones that haven’t moved for four hundred years shifting and yawning.

 _How many videos has be been in?_ Chihiro wonders. _How many people has he scared?_

“Thanks but no thanks,” Junko says, so quickly that it can’t possibly be false modesty.

He offers it again. She turns him down, and looks like she’s going to be sick, and Chihiro holds her breath in sympathy.

“Maybe someday, thanks,” Chihiro says, and gives the spirit her brightest smile. “But I’m glad you’re trying to make new friends.”

No-Face bows to her, so she bows back, and Junko hasn’t really withdrawn from hers yet, still staring at the coil of ribbon. This might have made more worse than better, Chihiro thinks, but it’s too late now and she still has to do _something_.

“I don’t know if this is a good place for friends, though. Do you need someone to take you home?”

He shakes his head.

“Then I think you should go. Grandma Zeniba is probably worried. I’m glad I got to see you again, though!”

He offers Junko, the ribbon one more time, and Junko puts her hands up and says “No thank you!” the way that might as well be written in katakana.

The patch of stars behind No-Face fades in, and soon the mask is all that’s left. When that’s gone too, the spirits of the ruined castle sigh with relief almost all at once, and a wind rustles Chihiro’s hair and clothes. Junko looks a mess, and when she finally lets go of Chihiro’s arm there’s a red mark in the shape of her grip.

“Chihiro?”

“Yeah?”

Oddly enough, the next words out of Junko’s mouth are “I’m sorry.”

***

It’s a long walk to the bottom of the ruins, and they take it even slower on the way down. They’re not holding hands anymore, just phones, and even the spirits are silent. It should be less awkward, shouldn’t it? It should be calmer, they should be closer. But the silence is weird, and changed, mostly because Chihiro doesn’t know what to say and Junko hasn’t said anything at all yet.

Finally, about halfway down, Junko asks, “So it’s always been real?”

“Not always,” Chihiro says, stalls with one foot on the next stone staircase. “Sometimes I really was just looking for a way back. But it’s real. When I said I was spirited away, I wasn’t lying.”

“And all those people? The river-spirit, and the baby, and the tengu women?”

“All real,” Chihiro says. “Or at least they were to me.”

“So what are you going to do?”

It’s not the question she expected to hear, but it’s one she can answer. “No-Face feeds off of people’s emotions. He’s not evil, but it does cause trouble when it gets out of control and when people are afraid of him. I think we need to get that video deleted somehow. I don’t know anyone who can hack it, and I probably can’t just tell the user--”

“My brother can go on 2ch and ask around for help,” Junko says. “I’ll tell him the person who filmed it was a dick or something.”

“Thanks.”

“And I’ll wipe it off Saya’s camera.”

“That’s probably a good idea too.”

Junko starts heading down the stairs again, so Chihiro follows. There’s still something missing in the silence, but it’s not something that Chihiro can just chase down--

“I always thought you wanted to go back,” Junko says. “Or at least like you were settling for us instead.”

Chihiro shuts her eyes, and tries not to miss the next step. “So I guess I’m sorry too.”

“It’s fine.” It’s hard to tell in the dark, but Junko might be blushing. “So, um...

Chihiro laughs, and hugs Junko so hard that they almost crash into a tree. And the rest of the way down, she tells Junko all about Haku, and how much she missed him all through that first year of school, how it felt like she’d left two homes the same day--about the soot-sprites, and yes, they had a little strike when they thought she’d do their work for them--about No-Face’s rampage through the bathhouse, and the big tub, and how she could never eat pork after what happened to her parents and they still don’t know why she can’t stand it or remember what happened beyond the missing afternoon and the bill from the car wash they still keep on the refrigerator in case her father decides to sue.

The cab driver is still waiting at the bottom, and he still plays K-Pop all the way back to the hotel. But Chihiro only hears it when she and Junko stop talking and remember to text everyone and tell them they’re on their way.

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to G. for taking a look at this!


End file.
